Sue and Simon unpack Chapter 2 - How can I serve more customers at peak? from our book "Every Second Counts: How to Achieve Business Excellence, Transform Operational Productivity, and Deliver Extraordinary Results."
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Sue and Simon unpack Chapter 2 - How can I serve more customers at peak? from our book "Every Second Counts: How to Achieve Business Excellence, Transform Operational Productivity, and Deliver Extraordinary Results."
Don't forget to register for the Productivity Forum 2024
#theproductivityexperts
Register for the Produtivity Forum 2024
Follow us on Twitter @Rethinkp
Connect to Simon on LinkedIn
Follow ReThink on LinkedIn
Welcome to the Productivity Podcast. Sue returns and we're going to keep talking about the book. We're into chapter two of every second counts. So chapter two how can I serve more customers at peak so conversation? We have a lot peak trading, the most important time for most organizations and the teams and your customers ultimately. So getting it right can make or break your business. Sue, I think this is one that's close to your heart is in lots of conversations that you're having at the moment.
Speaker 2:It is. And the thing about peak times I mean it's stating the obvious, but it's when most of your customers or potential customers are looking to buy whatever it is that you sell with our products or services. So actually getting it right at peak is the fastest way to grow and a lot of the studies that we do show that people are kind of slightly under resourced at peak and they're probably capping the growth. It can be difficult to manage. I mean, if you take, for example, you know a lunchtime sandwich shop, for example, you know there's a lot of people that want it all at once and flexing up your resource to match that can be tricky. But that is the challenge, because if you can't serve them quickly when they're looking for a sandwich, they'll go somewhere else and they might not come back to you again.
Speaker 1:So the reverse of that if you got it wrong at peak, you can clearly disappoint far more customers than you can. It's critical in terms of driving sales, but if you get it wrong you can quickly lose sales, I assume, and customers.
Speaker 2:Yes. So I guess writing and growing is when you get long queues and you know we often we have studied queues and we see people dropping off the end of queues. You know kind of not going ahead and there's lots of technology and things that can help you these days as well but ultimately where people are trying to buy something that's either meal specific or another time specific, you know you get peaks across business. For a lot of businesses east as a busy time Christmas, those people selling gifts. You know really understanding when you peak is and if you look at some of the shops I think things have changed because of the patterns of work have changed. But commuter businesses typically had have three peaks. They'd have the morning rush, lunchtime and then the evening rush. So you know it's about understanding when you peak is and what you can do to improve your capacity.
Speaker 1:Different by industry, different by location. So even within the same industry or the same chain you know I always use Westfield Stratford as the example their peak is probably five till 10 in the evening. They're the busiest affidavit in Sundays. But if you get it wrong in that evening piece you've lost your opportunity. So probably understanding when your peak is, maybe even at a local level, is a good start point. Clearly we've talked before around understanding how all things take and the times and all the associated bits that go with it. And then I assume it's about serving more customers at peak. How do you get more people through in that time slot?
Speaker 2:Yeah, which can be a mix of things. So it's one of those things that if you're in a coffee shop and you're going for volume or any fast food, anything that you can do that will shave a few seconds off that process for each customer will make a big difference. And that's where, if you look at things like customer self ordering or customer self pay, again makes a huge difference because you're increasing that capacity. So you know, when you've got these definite time windows where people are looking for something, you know how can you serve more customers in that time. So it isn't all about throwing extra people at it, because sometimes physically there isn't the space to do that. It's about how can you make, you know, plan ahead, make sure you're not doing other work at that time, make sure you haven't got your breaks at the wrong times. You know there's some really simple practical things that we see, you know are easy to get around.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you've got case study in chapter two around what others have done. So a series of small changes can create a big difference. We'll leave that to people to read in a book, but quick wins. So I know again, this book was all about being operational and making tangible things that people can go after and do, rather than being all theory. So it's working through a couple of them then. So watch your movements to the teammate.
Speaker 2:So that's when you look at it's kind of it's down to this thing about shaving seconds off processors. So anything extra the team has to do reduces capacity. So we see it a lot in places like fast food or coffee shops, where people are having to move to get things. The ideal is you stand in one place and everything you've got is in an easy reach. If you're having to take a couple of steps and perhaps cross over with somebody and then reach to a top shelf, that's going to take you longer. So what you're looking to do for these peak times is get rid of any extra movement that you can, because, one, it's less tiring for your team, but secondly, it means you can process people faster when your sales will be higher.
Speaker 1:Got it, and then interruptions, smooth flow process.
Speaker 2:That's kind of standing back and watching, and when I love seeing a place that's running really well and it can look almost like you know it's choreographed the way people work with each other and, you know, pass work between them or hand things off. Equally, you'll see places where people are working together, where they're busy, and it's kind of people are making lots of stop-start movements, almost bumping into each other or having to avoid each other, or a bit of wandering aimlessly and you know it's. It's a really different when you just stand back and look at it, versus a slick, well-oiled machine.
Speaker 1:I still find amazing some degrees. Process steps that require supervisors authorization are always worth a look at and I'm amazed that some of that still takes place, given the level of accountability that seems to have come down the hierarchy over the last well, probably since a lot now.
Speaker 2:I think it's a cultural thing. So some businesses are really good at kind of allowing customer-facing colleagues to make those sorts of decisions others still insist on you know you have to call a supervisor for a refund or they might have it set to level, but it's a level. That means they still try to trigger lots of, lots of requests for a supervisor intervention. One retailer that we looked at that called supervisors to a quite a significant proportion of their refunds. It was adding on over a minute because you know supervisors aren't always standing there just waiting in case somebody asked them for to sign up for a refund.
Speaker 1:Trying to get jobs done during busy times. So stock, for examples. I think that's about moving things, what we call on the shoulders of the peaks. They're trying to flatten that demand curve so you don't need to your staff numbers up and down. Yeah, why would you be replenishing stock at peak cages on the floor? Why would you be ordering stock, counting stock at peak when actually there's people keeping at the checkouts or you're missing valuable conversations to upsell?
Speaker 2:And it seems such a basic thing. Yeah, I bet we've all stood in queues when there's somebody that kind of that's doing some other task, when they could have been speeding your journey on.
Speaker 1:In a world where we've probably taken out checkouts in lots of the bigger chains, it was always frustrating when you'd a bank of 20 checkouts and there'd be people milling around but there'd be queues at the checkouts and only ten manned. It's probably less visible now because there's less man checkouts, but nevertheless whenever there's queues and people not serving on the till, always impuritant.
Speaker 2:And it's not just in retail. I mean, you see that hotel check-ins are classic there's often people around, and yet not you know.
Speaker 1:There can be a queue of people waiting to check in, and yet so question if it's anybody listening, if you know the answer, because again, a massive bug. Bear in mind if you check into a hotel, what is it that they're doing on the keyboard, which tends to take two to ten minutes, when you say you've arrived because you've probably paid? They know who you are, they know how long you're staying. Maybe they have to take a deposit, but surely they need to just allocate your room where they've done it. Yet they seem to move from screen to screen, typing away. I've it baffled me forever of what actually they do we, I can't really just be free allocated.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So if you know the answer, let me know Training. So actually, if people trained efficiently or actually if you just indoctrinated the training from the local store? So, betty, beryl, john, paul, that's the way they do it, so that's the way they train in, which may not be the one, the correct way to the compliant way, or three, the most efficient way. So are you perpetuating kind of poor Process compliance just by the fact that people get trained locally by people who have done it for years?
Speaker 2:It's interesting a lot of the the tasks that we will watch will be ones that people wouldn't necessarily Think of a high-skilled job. You know, if you say a high-skill task they might think about, like in a surgeon doing operations or making a cup of coffee is a highly skilled task.
Speaker 2:Making a cup of coffee is a highly skilled task. So is things like assembling a burger at high speed, you know, and it takes people a while to really get in a rhythm. So there's the best ways to do it. But, as ever, as they spend longer in that role and just get faster and slicker at things, it makes a big difference. So training can be that thing that really helps accelerate their, their progress.
Speaker 1:It's an ad mix painting, diy and cut timber. So I know I know highly skilled when we get there, final one who is running the operation at peak. So I was with somebody last week week before even and and incredibly, their busiest periods of Saturdays and Sundays and Friday evenings, and Most of their field team don't work Saturdays and Sundays and most of the managers don't work Fridays.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, you need to be there when your business is at its best and kind of not everybody wants to work every Saturday and every Sunday that comes along, but actually there has to be that, that right level of leadership in those situations to get the most out of it.
Speaker 1:Yeah and feel people dropping in. So again, you know we're not saying everybody has to work every weekend or evening, but as a view of how you're operating and what your customers are seeing very different on a wet Wednesday afternoon and a busy Friday evening, saturday, sunday. So to really understand that and drive performance, then you only fair to see it. So that's chapter two. We will be back with chapter three.
Speaker 2:Which is about how to save costs. It is sometimes.
Speaker 1:I'm not sure I understand. Oh, even Siri doesn't understand. So that's good, good timing. We'll. We'll be back with chapter three to tell you more about it. Good.